


Across the Universe

by bluester007



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (why questionable Freeform (?) ), ? - Freeform, Dehydration, M/M, Matt Holt the Rebel, Post-Season 2, Rebel!Matt, Reunion, based on a headcannon from tumblr, but also really, dellusions, how do tag, ish, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluester007/pseuds/bluester007
Summary: Shiro's stranded, desperate, and losing his grip on reality, when he's kidnapped / rescued by a helpful alien.Based on the hc by shatt-through-the-heart (lol)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on shatt-through-my-heart's post:  
> "Just imagine, Shiro being stranded and eventually captured by the rebels and led into their territory, obscured from any path they had taken him through.  
> His wrists tied in front of him and the days worth of dehydration evident on his lips, they shove him onto the ground in front of Matt Holt: the technician ready to check the stranger they had told him about, the one with the earthling features."
> 
> Doesn't follow it perfectly, but here's my take. I love the idea of Matt joining a rebel group and fighting the Galra, while the rest of the Paladins have no idea until, surprise, here's Matt, that guy you thought was a prisoner of an evil autocrat (because there are so many non-evil autocrats), to save the day.
> 
> Reunion fics are my jam.

Shiro startles awake as a low, roaring grumble shoots through the air. He forces his eyes to work, peeling lank, heavy lids off dry eyes. He blinks a few times, slowly, and ignores the itching burn of his corneas as he scans the sky above. He sees nothing at first until- _there!_ A brilliant blaze fractures the planet’s atmosphere, and Shiro has to squint as the harsh light shoots straight to the back of his skull with a harsh throb. He ignores it, ignores the cotton stuffed in his skull where his brain used to be, ignores the anchors weighing down his limbs, and the screaming cramps in his joints. He blinks a few more times, squints harder, tries to focus long enough to understand what he’s seeing. He follows the plume of smoke through the sky, watches a disjointed bundle of scrap fall slowly behind the crest of a rocky mountain on the horizon. It’s not until the smoke has cleared and the air is still, and the only sound is the dull throbbing in his head with each pump of his heart, that he realises he’d just seen a ship land. It takes a few ticks for that to register, and a few more for a faint bubble of excitement to bloom in his chest. For a moment, an immense relief washes over him. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, alone, surrounded by nothing but juts of stone, craggy buttes, sharp arches of rocks, and not a drop of green in sight. He’s found no traces of water or vegetation, no life other than his own degenerating body. He can’t even feel Black, a once-constant hum in the back of his mind and the root of his chest that’s now silent and still and cold.

The sudden burst of life drains away, drooling down his legs and into the ground to be consumed by the parched earth. It had been fleeting, a mirage in the hot baked air, and Shiro can’t be sure he hadn’t cooked it up in his own head. It wouldn’t be the first thing he’s hallucinated out here – he’d almost fallen down a cavern more than once in a delirious hunt for water. Even if it had been real, it’s miles away, on the other side of a mountain, with a stretch of crumbling canyons and valleys, sharp points and ridges, in between. Not to mention he’s extremely dehydrated.

 _But_ , Shiro thinks, _what have I got to lose?_ He either dies out here, crumbling away as his body leaches the last of the liquid in his organs and skin, or he finds that ship – if there is a ship – and asks for help, or at least some water.

If he’d been in peek condition, it would’ve taken an hour to get from where he’s made camp to the landing site, even scaling the rough terrain. In his current condition, his chest rattling, his feet like blocks of cement, his head balancing precariously on his neck, threatening to snap off a roll away to the bottom of a crevice, it takes five times that. He has to stop every ten minutes or so just to catch his breath and let his head stop spinning. He falls to his knees and dry retches. He stumbles on his own feet, skitters on a pebble, finds himself walking in small circles. He sees the other Paladins a few times, walking along beside him, calling out his name, urging him onward. He feels Black soaring over his head, feels her roar rattling in his bones. He hears Matt whispering his name in the wind.

After an eternity wandering his own head, swimming through the cracks and splinters of his mind, he feels himself lurch forwards, landing hard on his hands, barely keeping his face from planting in unforgiving rock. Then there are hands on him, gripping his forearms, pulling on his shirt, lifting him to his feet. He’s pushed and prodded, and, vaguely, in the back of his mind, he realises he’s being led somewhere. Then he realises there must be someone doing the leading and he panics, pulling his arms from their grip. Only, he’s weak, and his arms don’t listen. He can barely see. He’s not even on his feet – he’s being dragged, his legs trawling behind like loose threads on a sweater.

He blinks. He’s propped up against a cool metal wall, and it’s such a relief from the broiling heat he doesn’t notice his hands are tied for a good few minutes.

He blinks. His face is pressed into wood, a stray splinter digging into his cheek.

He blinks. Someone’s holding his chin up, forcing his mouth open. Cool liquid splashes on his tongue, and he realises how dry his mouth is, like it’s stuffed with sawdust, his throat clogged and rough. He reaches without thinking, his bound hands coming up, clutching the canteen pressed to his lips, tipping it up, up, choking down water until it’s snatched away. He nearly screams at the loss, nearly coughs up delirious sobs.

“Slowly,” a voice says, and then, thank quiznak, the water’s back, and he lets himself be fed careful sips until the canteen’s drained.

He pants, his lungs burning with each breath, and swallows. There’s saliva in his mouth for the first time in what feels like an eternity. He gives himself a moment to bask in the fact that he’s _alive_ , for at least another day. That he’s not going to shrivel and wrinkle like a raisin in the sweltering fire of a strange planet, far, far away from anything he’s ever called home. Then he forces his brain to _focus, dammit_.

He looks up at the stranger who’d given him the water.

“Thank you,” he croaks. It rakes his throat to speak, the words raw and jagged. He can’t see their face – there’s a cloth wrapped around their head, with a slit for three round, dull eyes. That’s all he can make out, but it’s enough to know they’re not Galra. It’s a small relief – he still doesn’t know who they are, but he does know that they had tied a dying, dehydrated man’s wrists.

They nod, but say nothing. Two of the three eyes blink, the other, middle one trained firmly on him, and he fights back a shudder. Before he can ask who they are, or tell them who he is, they’re standing, turning, and then they’re gone, and he’s alone again.

He notices, for the first time, that he’s in some kind of cargo hold. There are crates, sacks, and debris all around him. It’s only small, though, and the walls seem to be pieced of various scraps and ends, mismatched pieces of metal hammered together. Pirates, then. Or maybe a resistant group. Escaped prisoners on the run, refugees fleeing from the oppressive will of the Galra. It could be anyone, really – friend or foe. He can only hope, seeing they hadn’t left him for dead, that it’s the former.

He drifts off to the rumbling of the engine, and is shaken awake by the same three-eyed figure as before. He’s pulled to his feet, and he finds he can actually stand, although his knees quiver and his feet tear.

“Where are we going?” he asks, lips cracking, voice breaking. They lead him on silently to the back of the ship, one hand gripping his forearm tight. The bay door lowers slowly with a whine that scrapes at the inside of his skull. It drops with a thud, rocking the ship and shooting prickles of vibrations up his legs. He’s pushed forwards, and he somehow, miraculously, manages not to fall down the ramp and break his nose. They’re in what looks like a haphazard ship bay, with odd ships and crafts parked in a high underground cavern. Nothing matches – not even the brands on some of the ships. One reads “Milda’s Take Away – The Best Bulbur Pus In The Galaxy!” Another has a large, oblong, blood red eye on the side that seems to follow him as he’s led forward. A few heads turn – and a few antennae – but mostly they’re ignored. He’s led through a door, down a hall, around a bend, through another door, and his head starts to swim again so he loses track. He’s brought to a stop at door that looks no different from the rest, but his captor doesn’t let themself through this time. They knock, four sharp taps that set Shiro’s teeth on end. There’s a pause, and Shiro holds his breath without meaning to.

The door swings open, and he’s shoved through, falling to his knees, jarring his flesh elbow on the floor. He hisses, clenches his teeth, studies the ground as a wave of pain floods him. Every part of his body aches, every cell, every nerve, every vessel limply pumping blood to his brain. When it passes, he notices a set of boots under his eyes, and voices rising in the air around him.

“…like an earthling,” he catches, “…like the Captain.”

He slowly raises his head, forces himself to look up.

“ _Shiro?_ ”

At the sound of his name his neck snaps up, but the sting fades to the background as his eyes lock onto a pair so familiar, so _human_ , that his heart shatters, splintering to a thousand pieces, crumbling in a pathetic heap on the ground.

“Matt?” he chokes. “Oh, my god, _Matt!_ ”

Then there are hands on his shoulders, warm, gentle, and so, so _right_. Someone frees his wrists, and he doesn’t bother to take a moment to wonder how because he has Matt in his arms, Matt’s face in his neck, Matt’s chest against his, heart thumping a bruising rhythm right through to Shiro’s ribs.

“You’re _alive_ ,” Shiro gasps, and he knows he would be crying if there were enough water in his body. As it is, he’s heaving dry sobs into Matt’s shoulder, but he doesn’t care because he’s _here_ , he’s _breathing_ , he’s _alive_.

“You escaped,” Matt breathes into the side of his face. “You made it. _Shiro_.”

Then he’s pulling back and there are lips on his, soft, gentle, light. It’s a short kiss, more a reassurance than anything else. But even with severe dehydration, even with his bones screaming and his head pounding, it’s the first time since leaving for the Kerberos mission years ago that he’s felt like he’s home. He presses his forehead to Matt’s, gripping the back of his shirt as tight as his ailing fingers can.

“We looked everywhere for you,” he says. “In all the databases we could get our hands on.”

“Well, you found me.”

Shiro chokes a laugh. He closes his eyes and feels the exhaustion wash over hum.

“I found you,” he murmurs.

A dark, heavy fog fills his head, and he feels himself drifting off, all the energy flickering out as he fades into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo... sorry, this isn't great, I haven't written anything in so long and I'm completely out of practice.
> 
> I have the next chapter planned out, but I haven't started writing it because I'm terrible. I want to write it, and I definately plan to, but I make no promises because my motivation / inspiration is unpredictable at best and non-existant at worst. (sorry).
> 
> On another note: how great is the name Shatt, though, amiright?


End file.
